The Recession Halted Urban Job Sprawl

For most of the 2000s, jobs were sprawling alongside houses out of American cities and into the suburbs and beyond. From 2000 to 2007, the outer rings of metropolitan areas – those suburbs and exurbs 10-35 miles away from downtown – were gaining jobs at four times the rate of neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs closer to the center of town. On the ground, you likely noticed this trend driving by a far-flung glass office park on an Interstate 45 minutes outside of many major cities.

This trend of decentralized employment has been bad for cities, and particularly bad for anyone who relies on public transit to connect to work. By and large, there's no bus route running from urban neighborhoods to that office park on the highway.